


Heaven knows I'm miserable now

by theplatonicnonyeah



Series: These Things Take Time [2]
Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-04 09:30:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theplatonicnonyeah/pseuds/theplatonicnonyeah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He thinks my name is Clive. He thinks my eyes are brown.”</p><p>Philip is reeling after spending the evening in bed with Julien Grenier, a potential honeytrap target.<br/>He feels remorse, but is also incredibly drawn to Julien.<br/>There are some explicit flashback, but mostly angsty stuff.</p><p>Julien Grenier is a non-canon character created by me, on request by members of MRO.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heaven knows I'm miserable now

_“He thinks my name is Clive. He thinks my eyes are brown.”_

Philip slowly stirred the spoon round and round in the cup, watching the coffee swirl in endless circles. His mouth was a thin line drawn in a downward arch.

Elizabeth had just left to drive the children to school. She was bound to ask questions when she returned to pick him up for work. She seemed to have a sixth sense for when something was troubling Philip and he needed to find a strategy to not give himself away.

He could still feel the faint smell of Julien on his own skin and wondered how it wasn’t blatantly obvious to everyone else, to someone as observant as Elizabeth. But then he knew that when people weren’t looking for something in particular they didn’t see it either. And anyway, he had stumbled into the bedroom at home very late, probably stinking of alcohol and tobacco smoke so much that any other smell would have been drowned out. It was just his own nostrils that were filled with the intoxicating scent.

The coffee was getting cold, so he gulped it down in one quick go. It tasted vile. He must have been incredibly absent-minded this morning.

Then he thought about what he had actually achieved last night. Nothing. It would count for nothing, he realised with cold certainty. The only thing he had managed to do was get himself entwined in something potentially dangerous and emotionally draining. He had let himself become a target and instead of having the upper hand, he was fumbling in confusion.

He needed to take back control. He needed to –

But then it all came back to him again in full technicolour glory. He buried his head in his hands as the memory of Julien slowly pushing into him while whispering “Tell me to stop, if it hurts too much” came washing over him. He couldn’t stop it. He didn’t want to stop it.

Just then he heard the car pull into the driveway. He stood up abruptly from the kitchen table and made his way to the front door before his brain had time to register the pain in his left hand, as he accidentally banged it against the edge of the table.

Once at work, he buried himself in paperwork and phone calls to occupy his brain. But while helping a Mrs Mackintosh – _what a perfectly ridiculous name, it couldn’t possibly be real, she was probably having an adulterous affair with the “Mr Mackintosh” that she wanted to travel with to Tijuana – of all places!_ – why else would she be so insistent on finding a hotel with no other American tourists? – his mind began to drift again.

He remembered the feeling of the sheets in Julien’s bed, luxurious white linen sheets. He remembered inhaling the smell of the pillow: a vague scent of a flowery detergent, linen and of Julien himself. He remembered Julien’s unashamedly naked pleasure at his own hands.

Touching another man’s penis wasn’t as wildly awkward as he had feared it would be. In fact, it was strangely familiar, even though Julien’s member was a different shape and size to his own. But the functionality was the same, he noticed as he had begun moving his hand in a way not unlike how he touched himself. For every stroke he could tell that Julien was relaxing into it more, closing his eyes and breathing heavier.

He wanted to taste it. So he did. It tasted…salty from pre-come. It was warm and hard in his mouth and it was the most exquisitely erotic thing he had ever done before, so he felt himself becoming aroused again.

They made love twice. Yes, when he thought about it afterwards as he half sprawled in the backseat of the taxi, riding home through the nightlife of the city, he wanted to call it ‘making love’ not ‘fucking’. Fucking was something animalistic and raw that you did without really caring about the other person’s satisfaction. Making love was when two people looked into each other’s eyes as they…fucked each other’s brains out.

He had laughed out loudly to himself, catching the taxi driver’s eye in the rear-view mirror. _“He probably thinks I’m high. I am high. High on…”_

What?

His body had felt alive with lust and desire and something else he couldn’t quite articulate. Not yet.

Once at home, lying down in bed, the previous hours immediately returned to him as soon as he closed his eyes: Julien’s voice in his ear, whispering, moaning, urging him on, Julien’s lips against his own, tongues playing, teeth lightly biting, Julien’s body, his skin glistening with sweat.

The week that followed the old dream about Aleksei would wake him up every night just as he was about to come. But this time, Aleksei’s face had been replaced by Julien’s. He lay there in a panic, listening to hear if Elizabeth had woken up too. But strangely enough, she often slept like a log once asleep.

Then he would quietly get up, with his back turned against her, so that if she did wake up, she wouldn’t see his painfully erect cock. Carefully, he would close the door to the bathroom and lock it, before wanking off into the toilet. In his head he could still hear Julien’s voice: “Do you like this?”

Yes, yes.

But the release was always tinged with sadness. He longed for Julien’s body next to his own, the taste of his tongue, the smell of his skin.

There were no new assignments that week, so life was an endless repetition of pretend normalcy. Getting up, having breakfast, kids to school, drive to the office, lunch, coffee break, and then home again, dinner, TV, bed.

Come Sunday he decided to take a jog around the park. It always cleared his mind to work his body into exhaustion. He passed the phone box after only five minutes of running. It was unoccupied, so he slowed down and turned back. After inserting the coin, he dialled the number – memorized like a secret treasure – and let it ring.

It rang once.  
Then a second time.  
But just as it was about to ring a third time he quickly hung up and retrieved the coin from the slot.

He resumed his running. It was a sunny spring day with a light breeze. The park was full of people walking their dogs or playing with their children. Some strolled across the grass hand in hand, others sat on benches talking and laughing. A group of teenage boys were throwing a frisbee between each other in playful competitiveness. On a blanket in the shade of a tree, a young couple was having a rather advanced make-out session.

On the second round around the park he continued running past the phone box, pointedly looking the other way, as if it was publicly taunting him with its presence.

On the third round a teenage girl was leaning against the silvery machine. As he passed the phone, he saw her draw out a long string of chewing gum held between her teeth as she squeezed the receiver between shoulder and ear.

On the fourth round, he stopped by the bench just next to the phone, which was now unoccupied again. Putting one foot on the edge of the bench and leaning forward, he began stretching out the backside of his leg. A few minutes later he changed foot, all the while keeping an eye on the machine next to him. No one else approached it. With the leg bent and holding his ankle, he moved on to stretching the front of his thigh. After a while he changed leg. The phone was still unoccupied. His breathing was slowing down, sweat trickling down his back. He wiped his face with the front of his t-shirt and looked around the park.

 _“How do other people do this?”_ he thought and sat down on the bench. He could just get up and go back home, resume his life the way it had been for the last decade or more. It would be a good life. There was nothing really missing in it, if he looked at it objectively. He wasn’t starving, he had beautiful children, he had a wife. This is what most men wanted out of life. Why would he need anything else?

He stood to leave, putting his hands in his pockets. And there it was again, the coin. He fished it up and looked at it, lying in the palm of his hand. It weighted nothing. Like a grain of salt. _"Bread and salt never quarrel"_ , he thought. _"What does that even mean?"_

And so, he turned around towards the phone again, inserted the coin and dialled the number.

The phone rang once – twice – a third time.  
Just as he was about to hang up on the fourth signal, someone picked up the receiver at the other end and said:  
\- Oui, ‘allo? Ici Julien.  
\- Hi! It’s me. It’s…Clive.


End file.
